


Heat wave in St. Petersburg

by Beccalouise13



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: After episode 12, Denial of Feelings, Falling In Love, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Jealousy, Love Triangles, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Pining, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love, Yuuri knows what's going on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-23 10:13:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9651344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beccalouise13/pseuds/Beccalouise13
Summary: Otabek knows he's in love with Yuri but is too much of a gentleman to say no when Mila asks him out, Yuri doesn't have a clue about anything, while Yuuri and Victor know exactly what's occurring. Oh, and it all takes place in St. Petersburg while the skaters try haplessly to help out with Yakov's summer camp."It was early, like really early, and the morning felt almost chill the way mornings do when the days have been so hot. Gray half-tones of daybreak spread across the openness of Lilia’s driveway and made everything seem spectral and isolated, not least Yuri, whose pale white face and hair, rising above the thin layer of morning mist, seemed to be emitting their own light. He looked ghostly and ethereal to Otabek in the cold gleam of the day, kicking his converse against the pebbles of the drive, like he was some Russian morning spirit and not anything so base as human at all. Otabek gulped and felt his breast heaving. He was going to have to find some way to tell Mila he wasn’t interested. There was no way he could look at Yuri like he was looking at him right now and still date her."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's kind of a follow up to my last work (which I still haven't finished ;_;) Banquet, Take Two: Barcelona, in that Mila asks Otabek in that fic to come to St. Petersburg to help out with Yakov's summer camp, and in this fic that's exactly what he's doing.

It happened almost as soon as Otabek had arrived in St Petersburg.

Of course it did. He’d come on her request after all. At the banquet at the Grand Prix final in December, it was she who’d suggested he should come and help coach the kids at Yakov’s summer camp, and when he’d accepted her invitation her eyes had lit up all giddy like, so of course Mila had asked him out.

He’d touched down at Pulkovo National Airport just yesterday. At the luggage carousel he’d finally taken his phone off of flight mode only to be greeted by six texts, two Instagram notifications and a failed video chat. The texts were from Yuri though, not Mila – he hadn’t even thought about her yet – and his heart jolted awake inside his chest like it was shaking off the jetlag.

 _What time does your flight touchdown?_ The first text read.

 _Oh I guess you’re flying – you can’t reply._ The second.

_Don’t worry Victor’s googling it._

_No wait – he’s phoning fucking air traffic control!!!!_

_We got it. See you at the airport._

_We’re on our way._

_We’re?_ The first Instagram notification was a picture of a car crammed full of skaters, explaining without words the meaning behind Yuri’s plural. Victor Nikivorov had the wheel and the camera – God help them all – Yuuri Katsuki was riding shotgun, with Georgi Popovich, Mila and Yuri all crammed in the back, grinning wildly. Yuri had his tongue out, one eye closed and both middle fingers in the air. Otabek still didn’t think about Mila.

They were all waiting for him in arrivals in their own little section cordoned off from the general public. Half because Victor was a national treasure and half because Yuri was a teen heartthrob and they were surrounded by crowds of both paparazzi and cat-apparel-clad teenagers. The flash of the cameras only increased when Otabek joined them.

“Otabek!” Mila gushed, throwing her arms around him just like she’d done at every competition they’d both attended since the Grand Prix. It was only then that he remembered it had been her invitation he’d accepted.

Otabek thought he saw a look of awkwardness in Yuri for just a second, but he was probably mistaken. No-one goes from unsure and vulnerable to “GET OFF HIM YOU HAG HE’S MY FRIEND!” in the space of two nanoseconds. Pretty soon Yuri had hold of one of Otabek’s arms and then Mila had hold of Yuri and she was suddenly tossing him above her head like a seal might do a ball while Georgi was trying his upmost to get the poor kid down. Poor kid might be a stretch: Yuri was swearing so loudly in Russian that the parents of some of his youngest fans had to cover their children’s ears with their cat-shaped mufflers.

It was Victor who got the circus moving, slinging one arm around Otabek’s shoulders despite them barely knowing each other (the other was wound around Yuuri Katsuki’s waist) and ushering the gaggle through arrivals with a wink and a “Welcome to Russia, Otabek.” Otabek nodded, not entirely comfortable with Victor’s indiscriminate affections, but he allowed himself to be led along by the silver-haired celebrity who waved and smiled and placated the press, following Mila who was still twirling Yuri around her red hair in a surprising display of superhuman strength.

 

* * *

 

The car they bundled themselves into was even less practical on the way back from the airport than it was on the way to. It was Victor’s. It was flashy and expensive. It was completely ill-equipped to carry four grown men, one grown woman and a whatever the heck Yuri was classed as, plus Otabek’s luggage (the thing didn’t even have a trunk). Yuuri Katsuki had to practically sit on Victor’s lap, not that either of them seem to mind the arrangement much, despite Yuuri blushing in his best attempt to seem demure, Georgi was in the passenger seat, while Otabek, Yuri, Mila and the luggage were left fighting for dominance in the back. The suitcase was forcing Yuri onto both Otabek’s left leg and Mila’s right. Mila complained.

“Yuri, get off of me, you’re squashing my leg!” She said, pushing the boy further towards Otabek.

“I CAN’T HELP IT HAG, THERE’S NO ROOM BACK HERE! YOU DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO COME!” Yuri shouted back.

“I invited Otabek here, you’re the tag-along.”

“HE’S MY FRIEND!”

“You’re creasing my skirt!”

They squabbled so much over claim to Otabek that Yuri didn’t realise how still his friend had become underneath him. Yuri squirmed as he scratched and clawed at Mila, while Otabek kept his hand, trapped under Yuri’s thigh, perfectly still lest Yuri should think he was trying to stroke his ass. The thought made Otabek’s hand sit stiller and his ears go pink. He looked out the window at the passing landscape of St Petersburg as his flush thickened. Only Yuuri Katsuki noticed, glancing at him in the rear-view mirror while Victor cranked up the volume on _History Maker._

 

* * *

 

Yuri had said Otabek could stay with him in Lilia’s house while he was in Russia. _After all you’re coming to help her ex-husband current-whatever out with his summer camp,_ he’d texted before Otabek had arrived, justifying his invitation.

Victor had chucked them both out of his ridiculous flashy car at a ridiculously flashy house then. All old-money, neo-gothic, lifted-straight-from-the-pages-of-a-Leo-Tolstoy-novel type house. Exactly the kind you’d expect Lilia Baranovskaya to live in.

“See you tomorrow,” Victor smiled through a rolled down window as he left them. “First practice and then teaching! YAAAAAAY!” The car zipped away.

“VICTOR KEEP YOUR HANDS ON THE WHEEL!!!”

Mila pushed her head and the entire top half of her body out of one of the back windows. “SEE YOU TOMORROW OTABEK! DON’T YOU DARE KEEP HIM ALL TO YOURSELF YUUUUUUUUURI!” Her last syllables were elongated as the car made haste down the sand and pebble driveway, followed by white ribbons of dust as though the rubber wheels had set the ground on fire.

Yuri shouted something back to her that was so shrill and quick that only dogs could understand it, before he led the way up the path without a word. It was warm in St Petersburg. Much warmer than Otabek had expected it to be.

“It’s a heat wave,” Victor had grinned in the car as he’d overtaken a van in a definitely illegal manoeuvre, causing it to swerve into the crash barrier. Otabek and Yuuri had winced; none of the Russians had batted an eyelid.

“Hot, for your arrival,” Mila had winked. Otabek had gulped. She was very much at the front of his mind then.

Not now though. Not as he followed Yuri up through Lilia’s garden which sat still and close beneath the last dying rays of the day’s sun. Lazy, teasing flies rested on the plants and buzzed too close to Otabek’s face. He swatted them away as he still followed Yuri, dragging his case behind him. His blond shock of hair, longer than when Otabek had seen him last and pinned back from his face in two braids, shone and was blinding.

“LILIA!” Yuri called as they entered the house, (everything Yuri had said since Otabek’s arrival should be written in caps). “Guess she’s not in,” he shrugged as Otabek shut the huge gilded door behind him. “OLD GEEZER?” Yuri tried then. Still no reply.

“Come on.” His mouth tugged up at the sides into an almost smile and a heat rose in Otabek. “I’ll show you to your room.”

It was large and stately and Otabek wasn’t really comfortable with the ostentatiousness of it all, but Yuri was so unashamedly excited to have him there he wouldn’t dare say he wanted to stay anywhere else. That smile, which he was trying hard to contain, burst into a grin when an idea came to his mind. “I’LL SHOW YOU MY CAT!” he shouted far too loudly as he took off down the corridor, twirling and dancing and every inch the fairy the media made him out to be.

Otabek started to change. Out of his leather jacket and equally dark tee-shirt into something that smelt a little less like plane. He was bare-chested when Yuri frolicked back into the room accompanied by a hissing white and brown tomcat held haphazardly between his long white fingers.

“She’s called Sofia,” he said holding her upside down like she was a money box which he was trying to shake coins out of. Her claws snagged at the nearest bit of fabric they could find – a drape hung against the wall for seemingly no practical purpose – as she tried to pull away from him. “Though I’m pretty sure she’s a boy.”

It was only after he held out the mewling cat for Otabek to take that he realised his houseguest was half naked. Otabek tried to hide his embarrassment, reaching for the cat, but Yuri had paused momentarily. Otabek fancied he was embarrassed as well, but denied himself that small hope as Yuri very quickly re-caught his breath. Where exactly poor old Sofia was had been awfully misjudged in this whole naked chest affair, as Otabek was much closer to her than Yuri had reckoned he was, meaning when he shoved her forwards, she went straight into Otabek’s pecs. The cat hissed and scratched, whoever had hold of her dropped her out of reflex, leaving her to skulk away and Otabek with some beautifully defined matching scratches down either side of his chest.

Yuri, having fully regained himself, laughed out loud, even when his friend started to pock mark with blood. “Guess she doesn’t like you as much as I do,” Yuri sniggered, thoroughly amused. “I’ll get the first-aid kit.” Otabek could hear him laughing all the way down the hall.

The Kazakhstani boy imagined Yuri was watching him intensely as he sat cross-legged on the bed, only in his boxer shorts, rubbing an antiseptic wipe over his chest. He didn’t allow himself to look up from his work though, the fear of being disappointed too much of a distinct possibility.

The cat came prowling back into the room while he was working to mop up her bloodwork, pounced onto the bed and rubbed her dense fur around Otabek’s knees. He was in half a mind to kick the bloody thing off, but Yuri grabbed it before he could and it dug its claws deep into the sheets to try and escape his grip.

“Don’t think your cat likes you as much as you think it does,” Otabek said, looking at Sofia’s pleading eyes and hearing the words _help me_ in its hisses.

“Bullshit,” Yuri pouted, once again man-handling Sofia. “She loves me.” _Who couldn’t?_ Otabek thought, and he felt the heat rising to the tips of his ears again.

 

* * *

 

It was the next day that it happened. Right before practice. Even though they were due to teach the first classes of Yakov’s summer camp in the afternoon, they all still had next season to train for, to plan new routines for – they couldn’t slack off on their own development, especially since Victor had returned to the fray. No-one else had even sniffed gold anywhere since his grand medal-sweeping comeback, and if Yuri and Yuuri were frustrated with their respective silver and bronze at Worlds, Otabek hadn’t even placed. If he was going to podium anywhere where the Russains were, he knew he couldn’t afford to go easy on his training this summer.

Still, he was about half an hour behind everything they did this morning. Maybe it was the travelling (he couldn’t really blame a three hour time difference for jetlag) but Victor, Yuri, Georgi and Mila were already on the ice, throwing themselves into the air in lutzs and axels before he and Yuuri had even laced up their boots. Otabek didn’t really _know_ Yuuri, except for a few choice interactions here and there, but he felt like he could like him. He wasn’t as extra as the Russians, more palatable in comparison, and he wanted to say they were in similar situations. Well, ish. No-one really knew what was going on with him and Victor, but it was a lot more than was going on with, well, anybody else.

Yuuri joked through his yawns that the Russians poured vodka on their fruit loops in a morning to make them so alive so early. Watching their flawless quads at 6:30am however, Otabek wondered whether it was a joke at all.

“Hi Ota,” a trying-hard-to-be-seductive voice said behind him. He turned to see Mila, her arms spread across the barrier around the rink.

“Hi Mila.” He didn’t give his smiles out so easily, but he tried to be as friendly as possible.

“How are you enjoying our Mother Russia so far? Yuri not making your stay too horrible yet, is he?”

Yuuri disguised his snort of laughter with a cough that only Otabek picked up on. He _could_ like Yuuri, but he had the distinct impression that the guy noticed too much.

“No. It’s fine, so far,” he replied. He didn’t know exactly what to say, having only been in the country a little over 12 hours.

“So I was wondering,” Mila continued, her voice becoming slower as she lengthened her arms out further across the edge of the rink, “if you were going to ask me out at all?”

Otabek stopped lacing and Yuuri stopped choke-laughing.

“Oh, erm…” now he really didn’t know what to say, as he felt his face burn more furiously than it had done since he got here. Of course Mila was going to ask him that. Why hadn’t he anticipated it? She asked him to come to Russia, she threw her arms around his neck at any given opportunity, she stroked his nipples repeatedly through his shirt when she was drunk at the Grand Prix banquet last December...only an idiot wouldn’t have picked up on the signs. Otabek _had_ picked up on them, but hadn’t spared many of his thoughts on them, his thoughts always taken up with someone else.

“Um…” Yuuri’s face was pale as fuck as he flicked his eyes from Otabek to Mila and back again, tennis-match-style, wondering how this was going to end.

“Because I’m free tomorrow night?” she purred, though there was a trace of panic in her voice, like she had been so sure he would jump at the opportunity and now she was doubting her confidence.

This was _his_ stupid fault, of course she’d been confident, he’d led her on! He couldn’t exactly say no now without giving her a suitable reason why not.

His face must have been as red as her hair when he nodded through a weirdly forced smile. “Sure,” he stuttered. “Tomorrow night.”

She let out the breath she didn’t know she was holding and casually stroked the top of his head. “See you then,” she winked, her voice back to being semi-seductive.

Otabek tried not to look at Yuuri but he couldn’t help it. The guy was just staring at him, slightly slack-jawed and still extremely pale.

“What?” Otabek didn’t mean to snap but he suspected he did.

Yuuri still didn’t say anything, but just flicked his eyes onto the rink. Otabek stood up, his boots finally laced, and followed his gaze. Yuri was skating agape in perfect synchronicity with Victor, just for practise, and it made Otabek’s stomach feel like lead.

 

* * *

 

Yuuri had not so subtly made it clear that he should let Yurio (as he called him) know about his date with Mila.

“Why?” Otabek had asked, his insides twisting as he hoped Yuuri would say “because he likes you too.”

Yuuri instead just fidgeted on the spot and wrung his hands and sweated far too much for a guy inside an ice-rink before saying, “Yurio’s possessive over his…things. You’re _his_ friend, not Mila’s. You know how he is.”

His answer was wishy washy and Otabek was disappointed, but he knew he was right. He waited til the evening then and prayed Mila didn’t tell him first. She didn’t. So after they’d returned to Lilia’s mansion, and Lilia had made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t happy with Otabek distracting her little principle dancer from his training, and Yuri had made the house piroshkies for dinner, and Yakov had begrudgingly eaten the stodgy thing even though “Victor and Japanese Yuuri were making his blood-pressure too dangerously high to be eating such things,” Otabek and Yuri retired upstairs. They sat on Otabek’s bed against pillows and the headboard and watched some low-budget Russian remake of _How I Met Your Mother._ Otabek wasn’t really following what was happening – he was too busy watching the boy out of the corner of his eye as he failed again and again to braid his hair.

“For God’s sake,” Otabek said, knocking Yuri’s hands away from the fourth bodged braid, “let me have a go.”

“HEY! Don’t pretend you and your shaved scalp can style hair any better than me,” Yuri scowled as the braid broke limply apart and his hair fell back into place.

“I can’t do it any worse,” Otabek said, kicking the boy in the back so he’d shuffle further down the bed. Yuri complied, cursing in Russian under his breath, while Otabek scooched across so one of his legs was on either side of Yuri.

He couldn’t braid hair. He frowned at the blonde tendrils between his fingers, wondering how they were supposed to intertwine in any sort of systematic way. He didn’t admit he couldn’t do it though. Yuri was between his legs, he was touching him without inhibition, and even though he couldn’t see the boy’s expression, he could have sworn he was leaning into his touch. Otabek took his sweet time bollocking the first one up then. A whole episode of knock off _How I Met Your Mother_ had gone by before Otabek conceded defeat and tied the ends together. Yuri hadn’t even seemed to notice that the braid had taken approximately 15 times longer than any braid should ever take to make.

“Do the other side,” he insisted, instinctively leaning his head into Otabek’s left hand this time and shuffling backwards so they were sitting even closer together. His back was pressed up against Otabek’s chest, his hair was so close to Otabek’s face that the smell of coconut made his breath quicken, and he had to try and not think about how close Yuri’s ass was to his groin…he thought quickly of the Mila dilemma so the rush of blood stayed firmly in his cheeks.

He completed the second botched braid much quicker, the weight of the Mila confession now sitting uncomfortably heavy on his shoulders.

He knew what he was going to say – he rehearsed it a couple of times in his head first – though nothing came out of his mouth when he opened it until the third attempt.

“So Mila asked me to go out with her tomorrow night,” he started. Yuri’s lulling relaxed frame hardened immediately. “Not sure how that’s going to work with keys and things. Should I take yours, in case I get back late, or –”

“What do you mean she’s asked you out?” Yuri said without turning to face him. Where he was warm and malleable a second before, even his hair felt cold now.

“For a drink I think,” Otabek as good as muttered, “I didn’t really ask the details.”

“Oh,” is all Yuri replied with. “Like a date?”

Otabek nodded stiffly. Not that Yuri could see him – he was still looking forward at the TV – but he must have sensed some kind of affirmation as he grumbled: “Yeah whatever. Take my key.”

Otabek allowed himself a silent sigh. He didn’t know if it was relief because Yuri hadn’t flipped out like he’d expected him to, or disappointment because Yuri didn’t care. He reached forward to play with the blond hair once again but Yuri jerked his head around so he was staring grim-faced at Otabek.

“I didn’t know you liked Mila?” he almost snapped, his thin lips a mere breath away from Otabek’s.

“I-I don’t,” Otabek stammered, a little taken aback.

“Then why’d you say yes?” Otabek didn’t have the chance to reply before Yuri followed it up with: “whatever. I don’t care.” And he settled back in between his friend’s legs. But it was momentary. Otabek hadn’t even managed to make a move for the hair again before he jerked his head back around less than a second later and his face was even angrier than before.

“I can’t believe you said yes to that old hag!” He snapped louder. “I mean, she only _just_ broke up with her meat-head boyfriend you know? She probably still has syphilis or something!”

Otabek parted his lips to say something in his defence but it was no use. Yuri had thrown himself upwards so he was standing on the bed, glowering down at the poor bewildered Kazakhstani boy and now there wasn’t any question about whether he was shouting or not.

“IF YOU DON’T EVEN LIKE THE HAG, THEN WHY DID YOU SAY YES ASSHOLE?” He kicked Otabek hard in the calf but his victim was just too dumb-struck to react. The colour in Yuri’s face had risen to a white-hot heat, his fists were clenched and Otabek could practically hear his teeth grinding together.

“DO YOU JUST SAY YES TO ANY OLD BITCH WHO ASKS YOU OUT? WOULD YOU SAY YES TO ME IF I ASKED YOU OUT?” Otabek resisted the urge to reply in the affirmative.

With a last swift kick to the other calf though, Yuri pounced off the bed, more feline than ever, and left Otabek sat dazed amongst the pillows with a parting shot of “I HOPE THE BITCH GIVES YOU HERPES!” before he kicked the door open, almost tearing it off its hinges, and slammed it shut again with just as much venom. A crack appeared in the wall above the door and the picture on the TV jumped.

Otabek blinked. Twice. _What just happened?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I googled it - there is no Forever 21 in St. Petersburg - but there are a couple in Moscow so I invite you to extend your imagination with me. It was just too ideal not to be Forever 21 xD

Yuri was livid the next day; every inch the tiger he professed to be. Throwing water bottles, ice skates – even his phone copped for it, as did poor Yuuri’s, who’d somehow wound up babysitting this tantrum while everybody else was helping out with Yakov’s summer camp. Turns out Yuuri wasn’t suited for the world of teaching – the novice class had him tied up with skipping ropes, Gulliver’s Travels style, and was dragging him across the ice rink to some Pagan altar before an hour of his first session had even expired. He’d been relegated to working on his own training needs then. And Yuri, well, three crying children and just as many threatened lawsuits later, he too was no longer allowed to help with the summer camp until he’d calmed down or else he’d put his coach out of business, Yakov had said, (or words to that effect).

So they were in the gym together doing basic training while the rink was being used, and Yuri was flat out terrifying. The thing was, he didn’t even know _why_ he was so angry. Sure, Otabek had down right betrayed him, the no-good dirty asshole: staying with him and pretending to be his friend while all the time he was here for Mila. Well he could fucking go and stay with Mila then, Yuri thought, as he flung himself backwards and collapsed on the sit up bench.

Okay that was enough to be mad about. Bastard.

Yuuri, on a bench next to him, flinched at the sight of any new movement. The kaleidoscope of cracks on his phone warning him to tread carefully.

Yuri just lay there though. His hair sprawled over the leather, his arms splayed at angles at either side of him, and after about five minutes of sit-ups that were becoming slower and slower while he decided if the tiger was safe enough to prod or not, Yuuri finally stopped his exercises and squeaked out a question.

“Want to talk about it?” he almost whispered, patting his pocket out of reflex to check what was left of his phone was a safe distance away.

“Nyet,” Yuri replied in Russian, so Yuuri made to continue his sit-ups. The nyet didn’t last for very long though.

“Otabek’s a fucking scummy traitor,” Yuri spat, still staring at the ceiling. “He makes out like he’s _my_ friend, but all the time he’s using me to get to _Mila._ ” The name dripped off his tongue like poison. “ _Mila._ Fucking hag.”

Yuuri breathed loud and long. Gods all the things he wanted to say. _Could say_. None of it was his place to say though so he settled with: “you mean their date?”

“YOU KNEW ABOUT IT?” Yuri shrieked, sitting up suddenly and startling Yuuri enough that he toppled straight off his bench. What was left of his phone shattered where he landed on it.

“He’s only being polite, Yurio,” he said from his new position on the floor, (the further away from the angry little Russian, the better). “I’m not even sure he really likes Mila. Not like that anyway.”

“Like what? You think he’s going to sleep with her?” Wow, that was a jump, Yuuri thought.

“No I don’t think he’s going to sleep with her,” he sighed, hauling his upper body back up onto the bench. “They’re just going out for a drink.”

Yuri narrowed his eyes at his Japanese namesake, grumbled something in angry Russian and collapsed back on the bench just as the door of the gym swung open.

“Who’s a dirty, good-for-nothing pork cutlet bowl?” Victor trilled, standing arms askance in the doorway. Yuri didn’t have the decency to look ashamed.

“So since you’ve scared away most of today’s clientele,” Victor continued, his heart-shaped mouth stretching from ear to ear, “the rink’s free if you want to get some practise in?”

“Not a good time, Victor,” Yuuri replied, signalling a cut-throat motion behind Yuri.

“It’s always a good time for Victor,” he continued to grin, unashamedly referring to himself in third person. “We can work on your short programs. What’s your music for next season again, Yurio?”

“You shouldn’t fucking make friends with people ‘cause you can’t fucking trust anyone,” Yuri snapped.

“Is that Beethoven?”

Yuuri struck his head against his bench.

“We’ll have no interruptions. Georgi’s out with Aneska (“I thought he was dating Dominika?” “It’s Aneska this week.”) Yakov’s nursing a Yurio-shaped migraine, and Otabek and Mila have gone out to the mall to get dinner together and could potentially be out all evening if they have enough to talk about.” The colour in Yuri’s face was a gradation of white through red. “Which I think they will because Mila sure looked happy -”

Trigger warning! Yuuri hit his head back on his bench while Victor’s got Yuri’s phone thrown at it.

“OH I see,” Victor smirked, picking up Yuri’s crunchy-with-glass phone from the floor where it’d landed. The lock screen was just about identifiable as a photo of Yuri, Otabek and what might have been Yuri’s cat. Could have equally been a hobgoblin or a large Yorkshire pudding though – there were a lot of cracks obscuring it. “LET’S _ALL_ GO TO THE MALL!”

“Victor, do you think that’s such a good idea -” Yuuri started, but Victor was already dragging them both up and heaving them out of the room like two sacks of potatoes.

“UNHAND ME OLD MAN!” Yuri squirmed and wriggled, trying to break free from the headlock. Victor didn’t let go.

“You two need new phones anyway by the looks of things. This will be the perfect opportunity to buy some. I’ll buy them. My treat! Family night out!” (“I’M NOT PART OF YOUR FAMILY!”) And with both Yuris still secured safely under both arms (albeit swearing and biting and moaning), he kicked the door to the gym closed behind them.

 

* * *

                

“You’re not being very subtle, Yuuri,” Victor sulked when his Japanese student returned to the table, his scarf hiked up over his mouth despite the heat and panting with the strain of trying not to be seen.

“Subtle?!” Yuri yelled. “You’ve got me gorilla crawling across the floor of a shopping mall in sunglasses and a trench coat in 30 degree heat trying to lodge a camera inside a potted rhododendron! You’re lucky I haven’t been arrested!”

Victor sipped his iced latte through a straw as he regarded Yuuri over the top of his Armani sunglasses. He and the other Yuri were sat in a corner of a quiet coffee shop trying hard not to draw attention to themselves, though Yuri had barely mumbled a word to anyone since they arrived.

“Don’t be mad, my little piggy,” Victor purred, reaching forward and pulling Yuuri close to him with his scarf. He ran his thumb across his own lips and then Yuuri’s, making his student gulp and blush and his thick-rimmed glasses fog up. “I’d do it, but even wearing sunglasses I’m just far too famous to go unseen.” He pantomimed swooning. “Plus my trousers are worth more than your existence and I wouldn’t want to get the knees all dusty doing all that crawling!” Yuuri no longer took Victor seriously enough to be insulted.

“Nobody needs to fucking do it!” Yuri snapped, his conversed feet up on the table next to Victor as he pounded his new phone with fingers uncovered by fingerless gloves. “I don’t give a shit what Mila and Otabek are doing.”

“Noooo?” Victor smirked. “That’s why you’ve been obsessively checking Mila’s Facebook profile for updates for the past half an hour.”

Yuri reddened. “I’m not – I was just -” Victor’s grin grew and grew with each stutter. “Fucking shut up and leave me alone.” And he went back to banging his phone.

“Did you plant the camera?” Victor asked, his eyes lighting up as he turned back to Yuuri.

“Yeah, though this feels kinda weird.” Yuuri hesitated before handing the corresponding screen to Victor.

“I feel no shame,” Victor beamed snatching it from him. “There they are!”

Yuri flicked his eyes towards the others, his interest piqued despite himself. It hadn’t taken them long to find Mila and Otabek – they were sat in a restaurant having dinner – since the girl was documenting every time Otabek so much as went to the toilet on some platform of social media as quickly as Yuri could hit refresh.

It was Victor’s idea of course to set up a camera to spy on them for no other purpose than to seemingly annoy his little fellow Russian. And Yuuri, as always, had been roped along with another one of Victor’s crazy schemes.

“Ooo, good picture, Yuuri. Great positioning of the camera. Did they see you?”

“I was on my knees feeling up a wax plant…people were trying _not_ to look at me.”

“Too bad we don’t have a microphone. Want to crawl back over there and stick one under their table? Pretend it’s gum? We can dress you up as a waiter?”

“No.”

“Fine, we’ll just have to make up what they’re saying.” He flicked his eyes to Yuri to gauge his reaction before continuing. “ _Oooo, I love you Otabek,_ ” he said in an affected accent. “ _Your signature blend of condescending frown and as few words as possible is so dreamy. I wish I could have your stern Kazakhstani babies –_ hey that guy’s stealing my camera!”

Yuri snorted his laughter very loudly. Yuuri took a sip of Victor’s drink. “That’s what you get when you leave expensive equipment lodged in shopping mall shrubbery.”

Victor’s bottom lip protruded and his eyes welled up as he held the screen with both hands – now showing a blur of shops and feet as the thief legged it past Prada.

“Oh well,” he threw the now-useless screen behind him with his signature smile and Yuuri winced at the sound of something crashing. “Guess we’ll have to stalk them in person. Sunglasses on, boys.” He grabbed both Yuris again and started dragging them from the coffee shop.

 

* * *

  

“This is so dumb,” Yuri muttered, still on his phone as he refused to duck down behind the giant motorbike statue outside TGI Fridays. He looked pretty conspicuous, in his pink leopard-print crop top, pastel leggings and tortoise-shell sunglasses, while Victor had deliberately bought and changed into a fully-black ensemble for the occasion, ensuring Yuuri had too.

“What’s dumb is if they see you,” Victor whisper-snapped, contorting his body into the shape of the motorbike so he wouldn’t be seen through the wheels.

“I feel like a felon,” Yuuri muttered, wheezing like an asthmatic by Victor’s feet.

“Who cares if they do see me?” Yuri shrugged, glancing over to where he could just about make out Otabek’s under-cut and Mila’s attempt to do something vaguely glamourous with her red bob in a booth on the top floor of the restaurant. The more conspicuous he was, the more likely it was that the date was going to be ruined and not repeated, right? The thought gave him a smug feeling of satisfaction.

“Excuse me,” A perky waitress covered in badges and fake platitudes approached them. “Would you like a table?”

Victor dragged her down so she was hidden by the bike too and she squealed.

“You see that table?” he said, all black glasses, black beanie, black facemask and definitely scaring her. “Could you go and see how their date’s going?”

“How is she supposed to do that, Victor,” Yuuri asked, trying to loosen his coach’s grip on the terrified twenty-something before she radioed for mall security and they ended up in one of those little mall prisons.

Pondering this with his one finger to his lips, Victor said: “If the girl’s drinking a lot, we can assume it’s not going as well as she’d like. Though he’s not likely to say something that could offend her; he barely says anything at – oh my God, she’s touching him!” he shrieked, shaking the poor waitress senseless.

“Touching him?” Yuri gasped, finally crouching down beside Victor and peering in between the wheels of the bike. “Where?”

“On the table.”

“Moron,” Yuri kicked him and the kick reverberated through to the waitress and Yuuri. “I mean where on his body is she touching him?”

“On his dick, he’s got it flopped out over the ketchup dispenser.”

“That’s not part of our company policy…” the still-captured waitress muttered while Yuuri still worked to free her.

“On his hand obviously.”

“I have to get back to work…”

“SHIT, they’re moving!” Victor shrieked, dropping his captive. Otabek and Mila had both stood up, (Yuri couldn’t help but note how Otabek had risen first and offered his hand to Mila to help her out of the booth,) and there was a mad scramble to get as far away from the restaurant as quickly as possible.

Yuri threw himself as close to the floor as he could manage, caught up in the hysteria of the stalking, and the waitress was finally freed as all three of them rushed away – the two Yuris scuttling hunchbacked, Victor as good as doing the worm across the marble floor. They paused when they turned a corner and slouched against the wall, panting. People were looking at them – how could they not – but they seemed to be querying their strange ensembles and demeanours rather than noticing the internationally-recognisable athletes.

“This was such a stupid idea,” Yuri yelled, kicking Victor hard into the path of oncoming pedestrians.

“Err, you guys,” Yuuri muttered, peering round the corner back to the restaurant. He was ignored.

“Always your stupid fucking schemes, you never think about anyone else do you Nikivirov?” Yuri continued. Victor began unmasking himself, shaking his unmistakable silver hair out of his beanie and pushing his sunglasses up to the top of his head. “And you look like a fucking douche like that.”

“Err, guys,” Yuuri repeated again, now starting to sweat profusely.

“Hey, I’m not the one who doesn’t realise he has a _huge_ crush on - ”

“YOU GUYS!” Yuuri shouted now. The Russians finally looked towards him. “THEY’RE COMING THIS WAY!”

After a quick peek around the corner to check he was right, (during which they looked like a figure-skater totem pole,) they pushed and pulled on each other, trying hard not to be the one left at the back, before throwing themselves simultaneously into the nearest shop. They ended up in a heap on the floor of Forever 21 then, only to be greeted by at least half of Yuri’s rabid fanbase.

Screams and camera flashes and cries of “YURATCHKA WE LOVE YOU!” erupted and kept them pinned in the store for over half an hour, and when the fans refused to stop coming and the squealy teenage girls were becoming a hysterical mob, the store had to close its doors to try and stem the chaos and the trio had to sneak out the back into the throws of twilight, by which time Otabek and Mila were long gone. Victor’s day as a questionable spy-cum-stalker was over. Sighing that he didn’t have any palatable gossip, he drove Yuri back to Lilia’s house.

Yuri tapped on his phone the whole way there, unrestrained in his obsession with Mila’s Facebook profile. The date had taken them to a bar right now. Mila was drinking cosmopolitans (she wasn’t going to be at the rink early tomorrow), Otabek was drinking something green and vaguely radioactive looking. Mila looked sickeningly attractive, with her hair scraped back from her face and thick vampy lipstick on. Otabek wouldn’t be able to resist falling in love with her there and then, Yuri though.

Yuri unfriended her before immediately regretting it. He’d have to move on to her snapchat story.

Flicking his eyes towards his driver while the app loaded, he noticed Victor’s hand on the gearstick was covered by Yuuri’s and it made him want to puke. He launched his phone forwards and it bounced back off the front window, hitting Yuuri in the face. Victor reacted, the car swerved, Yuuri screamed, but he was used to Victor’s driving enough by now to know not to react.

“Yurio, that’s new!” Is all Victor said as he bent his head beneath his seat to find the projectile. Yuuri grabbed the wheel quickly as they narrowly avoided colliding with a van carrying cargo crates of chickens.

 

* * *

 

Yuri didn’t admit to himself that he was waiting up for Otabek to return. When the clock rolled around past 11 though (it wasn’t late, though it felt like an eternity had passed since he’d left the chuckle brothers alone in Victor’s car), and Otabek crept into Lilia’s ridiculously-sized mansion, Yuri’s eyes were still open as wide as saucepans, staring straight ahead.

He listened to Otabek’s feet padding upstairs on the thick plush carpet, listened to them pause outside his room, imagined that he was deciding whether it was appropriate to knock or leave it.

“I’m still awake, asshole,” Yuri called, making the decision easy for him. The door peeled open. Yuri was wrapped up in his duvet despite the stifling heat of the night and didn’t turn to look at Otabek. “How was your date?” he asked, still staring at a fixed point on the wall in front of him.

“Fine,” Otabek as good as whispered. Yuri could tell he was hesitant to say too much, choosing his words carefully like he was throwing rocks at a sleeping lion. Good, he thought. This mess is all your fault anyway.

The air seemed a lot closer then as no-one spoke, but Yuri was determined not to shuffle out of his duvet until he was alone. Otabek spoke first, and his words made everything infinitely hotter.

“Listen Yuri,” he started, entering the room with caution.

“I don’t care,” Yuri interrupted him. “About you and Mila, I mean. Date or don’t date who you want. Why should I give a flying fuck?”

Yuri felt the bed dip slightly as Otabek sat beside him, right by the pillows, but he still didn’t turn around.

“But I was going to say -”

“I SAID I DON’T CARE!” And the tone of Yuri’s voice told Otabek to leave it.

A pause. Otabek was still sat right by him but neither of them said a word until Yuri felt the brush of hot fingers over his ear and in his hair. Yuri didn’t know what was happening. Was Otabek stroking him? He wasn’t a fucking cat.

“What are you doing?” he tried to hiss, though it came out as more of a purr.

“You’ve left a braid in your hair,” Otabek replied, his fingers working delicately to undo it. “It’ll tangle if you leave it in overnight.” Yuri’s scalp prickled under Otabek’s touch and he held his breath until the braid was successfully loosened. Strands of hair were directed softly over his cheeks and he felt even warmer than before. Beads of sweat were forming under his knees and arms under the quilt.

“Otabek,” he called as the Kazakhstani boy stood up and was leaving. The chink of light entering the bedroom from the hall stopped getting smaller as the door stopped closing. “I’m still your friend.” Yuri felt like Otabek nodded as he left.

After the door had closed, he immediately beat his way out of his downy cocoon and lay star-fished across his bed in nothing but tiger-striped boxers. He touched his hair on the side where the braid had been and huffed.

Yuri didn’t cry much – it was like his face didn’t know what to do. His expression never changed from straight and staring and he didn’t even realise he _was_ crying until tears slowly traced roads down his cheeks.

He touched one and inspected his fingers afterwards, puzzled.

He had no idea why he should be so upset.


	3. Chapter 3

Otabek felt like he was stuck between a Yuri and a hard place. A rock and a Mila. On the one hand he had Mila texting him pictures of themselves together from last night which he didn't know she’d even taken, and on the other he had Yuri scowling at him over a bowl of corn flakes.

Otabek wished the Russians really did pour vodka over their cereals. He could certainly use some today.

“Come on,” Yuri said after he’d wolfed his flakes down and poured a mug of coffee into his mouth without waiting to see if it’d burnt his tongue. He was up on his feet suddenly and making his way towards the door. Otabek hadn’t even woken up enough to make himself anything for breakfast. He’d half boiled the kettle and removed a bowl from a cupboard, but he didn’t dare complain about Yuri’s haste. The boy had offered him half an olive branch last night and he didn’t want to be the one to break their tentative peace-deal. He stopped the kettle whistling then, pushed the bowl back where he’d found it and followed his host outside.

It was early, like really early, (they wanted to practise their own routines before Yakov’s gaggle of pre-pubescent wannabes appeared), and the morning felt almost chill, the way mornings do when the days have been so hot. Gray half-tones of daybreak spread across the openness of Lilia’s driveway and made everything seem spectral and isolated, not least Yuri, whose pale white face and hair, rising above the thin layer of morning mist, seemed to be emitting their own light. He looked ghostly and ethereal to Otabek in the cold gleam of the day, kicking his converse against the pebbles of the drive, like he was some Russian morning spirit and not anything so base as human at all. Otabek gulped and felt his breast heaving. He was going to have to find some way to tell Mila he wasn’t interested. There was no way he could look at Yuri like he was looking at him right now and still date her. It would be kinder in the long run.

“What are you looking at?” Yuri scowled, catching Otabek’s stare.

“Nothing,” he smiled, a real smile, genuine and warm, and Yuri’s phosphorescent face went pink.

A car pulled up slowly onto the driveway, (a different one from the one the day before and the one the day before that – Victor seemed to have a collection), and the driver’s side window rolled down as it reached them. Victor was sat in the driver’s seat, helpful, since he was the one supposed to be giving them a lift to the rink, but he was fast asleep with his head lolling against the headrest and Yuuri Katsuki had his hands on the wheel, leaning over from the passenger’s side. His face looked every bit as wretched as you’d expect a face that had just saved itself from near-death to look.

“VICTOR!” Yuri screamed, shaking off his obvious embarrassment and jolting the older Russian awake.

“Are we here already?” Victor mumbled, wiping drool from his bottom lip.

When their driver was awake and his traumatised passenger was forcing cold coffee down his throat, Yuri was happy to clamber into the back seat. Otabek still didn’t feel entirely safe, the years taken off of Yuuri Katsuki’s life that were now etched into his forehead made him nervous, but he followed Yuri inside all the same.

Otabek thought Victor was reaching speeds that were far too risky for someone who was comatose at the wheel not two seconds before. To save his hands from his nails which were digging into his palms then, he closed his eyes and tried hard not to think about his imminent death at the hands of a Russian celebrity. He hoiked his knees up against the back of Victor’s chair, which was altogether too far back, and soon drifted off.

When he awoke some time later, he felt hair too long to be his own tickling his skin and realised Yuri had fallen asleep too – his head resting on the top of Otabek’s shoulder. There was twittering from the front seat, something about a stop sign that hadn’t been stopped at, but Otabek noticed through his narrow sleep-shut eyes that Yuuri kept glancing back at them like a proud parent. Otabek didn’t know what to do with his own arms for the rest of the journey. They felt heavy and awkward under Yuuri’s gaze and he didn’t want to wake the snoring teenager. He was kind of relieved when they pulled up at the ice-rink and, seatbelts or no seatbelts, they were all thrown forward with the force of Victor’s braking.

 

* * *

 

“So how was it last night?” Georgi asked Otabek before Mila had arrived at the rink (too many cosmos the night before had kept her in bed). They were on the ice, but Victor, Yuuri and Yuri were all close enough to stop what they were doing and listen to Otabek’s answer. He felt under pressure.

“Fine.” He answered him the same way he’d answered Yuri the night before. Vague and to the point. Didn’t invite too many questions.

“Did you kiss her?” Georgi pushed him. Gods why did this guy have to be so in love with love? Why couldn’t he just be a guy about it, y’know: cold and disinterested. Otabek tried to look anywhere other than the four sets of eyes that were so clearly on him. He scratched the back of his neck and focussed on a Russian flag hung from one of the blocks of seats.

“No,” he answered truthfully.

“Why not?” By this point the others weren’t even pretending they were still skating: they were gathered in a circle around him like they were preparing to drag him into a van.

He scratched his neck hard enough so it started to hurt.

“It didn’t seem…the right time?” Why had he phrased that as a question?

“Ah, a second date kisser, always more romantic that way I feel. I remember when I first started dating the love of my life, Aneska -”

(“Didn’t he only meet her three days ago?” Yuuri not-so-subtly whispered to Victor.)

Yuri had lost patience with this whole conversation by now and had skated off, landing the angriest quad salchow he’d ever landed in his career, (which is saying something, since most of his quad salchows were fairly angry…most of his jumps in general), and Georgi only finished telling his Aneska story to himself as a shrill “OTABEEEEEK!” rang out across the rink and Mila had arrived. All eyes turned to her as she flung her arms around the Kazakhstani boy’s neck, except Otabek’s alone, which followed Yuri as he left the rink.

 

* * *

 

“Are you seeing her again?” Yuuri called to Otabek, just coming out of an ina bauer when the two of them found themselves alone on the rink that afternoon. Otabek wasn’t exactly sure where everyone else was, but he was glad to be away from Georgi and Victor’s pestering and Mila’s unwanted affections.

“I don’t think so,” Otabek replied, skating languidly in a lazy figure of eight. “I mean she’s nice, but,” Yuuri could fill in the gap left after the ‘but’ by himself. Otabek continued. “I don’t know how to tell her that though.”

There was nothing but the haunting echo of the skates scraping against the ice for a while as they both considered Otabek’s options. Yuuri tipped into a camel spin, his free leg extended in an arabesque position parallel to the ice while he thought. Otabek just continued doing long laps of the rink.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” Yuuri sighed after a while. “I’ve never been in the privileged position of having to turn someone down.”

Otabek smiled – inwardly of course – he’d already spent one smile today.

“Guess I could text her,” he mumbled. The thought was more for himself, but of course Yuuri heard in the stillness of the rink.

“You can’t break up with someone via text. You have to tell her in person,” he cried, aghast.

Was it really breaking up with her after just one date though? Otabek thought. Surely a quick text would do. Somewhere, lost in his thoughts, he decided he’d warmed up enough and launched his body into a triple axel. It turned into a single though. He wasn’t concentrating. He tried again, but he stepped out of it. Fuck this! Third time lucky. He finally landed it after three attempts but it was sloppy at best. When his skates collided with the ice, a voice raked against the emptiness:

“You call that a jump?” it echoed. “I landed better triple axels when I was ten.” It was Yuri. He was leaning against the rink with his water bottle hanging out of his mouth from between his teeth. Yuuri smiled.

“Hi Yurio,” he said, skating across the ice to meet him. Yuri waved him away.

“If you two assholes are doing nothing but dicking around, you wanna get off the ice? I’ve got a free skate to practise.”

Obedient, Yuuri left him to it, and still trying to make peace with his friend, Otabek reluctantly did the same. As they passed each other, Yuri extended a balled up fist to Otabek. Enthusiastically, the Kazakhstani did the same and knocked it against the boy’s – maybe just a touch too hard – but he felt like one weight had suddenly been lifted. Were him and Yuri okay now? Relief lightened his step as he left the ice. Now he only had Mila to let down.

Otabek and Yuuri watched the boy’s free skate from the sidelines. He had no music, but was happy to show off to them all the same. His first jump was a quad lutz, triple toe combination and Otabek couldn’t help but think how confident his entry into it was for so early in the season. Next up was a quad toe, into a double toe, into a double loop – he used his whole body as he turned with a beautiful reach back. Otabek watched, mesmerised at his litheness, his feline-quality, his quad flip was stunning and straight back on the landing – beautiful. Every time Otabek watched Yuri skate he felt the exact same feeling of awe as he had done all those years ago when they’d first met in this same city. Yuuri’s phone buzzing next to him was the only thing that distracted his concentration.

“Victor?” Yuuri tried to whisper. “Calm down!” It wouldn't have mattered if he was yelling though, Yuri was listening intently to his free skate music playing inside his head. “The child’s where? How did he get up there? He’s hanging by what?! Okay, okay I’m coming. Don’t tell Yakov yet, I’m on my way.” Yuuri made his apologies and slipped out of the rink, leaving Otabek alone to watch Yuri finish his fourth quad. When he started his signature Bielman, Otabek started clapping, slowly. That often signalled the end of Yuri’s routines.

“What do you think?” Yuri asked, barely noticing Yuuri Katsuki’s absence. “It’s better with the music of course.”

“Not bad,” Otabek smirked.

“Victor’s doing five quads this season. It needs to be better than not bad,” Yuri pouted.

Otabek felt confident enough from Yuri’s gesture earlier to tease. “You stepped out of your last quad,” he said.

“I did not!”

“And you called my triple axel sloppy?” he skated back onto the ice.

“My triple axel is ten times your triple axel,” Yuri shouted, skating over to him and by his side. “Show me yours again, asshole!”

As they skated side by side, skated independently, competed their jumps against the other’s for an hour, maybe two – Otabek lost track of time – he decided they were good. Decided a text would do to let Mila down as well.

 

* * *

 

“Hpmh,” Yuri chuckled to himself when he and Otabek were alone in Lilia’s emporium that evening. They were lying across one of the living room’s grand old sofas which was big enough for them both to be stretched across at opposite ends with nothing touching the other except one of Yuri’s dainty sockless feet which occasionally tickled against Otabek’s when he laughed. Otabek was very aware whenever this happened – too aware – and it made composing his text message to Mila both easier and harder.

“Haha,” Yuri laughed a bit louder and more obviously. He was staring at his phone too. Otabek didn’t have the vaguest idea what he was doing, but every new laugh and new toe tickle made Otabek stutter over what he was trying to achieve.

 _Dear Mila,_ he’d written on his own screen. That sounded stupid; it wasn’t a formal complaint he was writing for fuck’s sake. _Hi Mila,_ he changed it to. Better. Less formal. _How are you?_ Bollocks; no; scrap that. What did it matter how she was? He was imminently saying they shouldn’t see each other again. She was about to feel wretched.

His screen was blank at _Hi Mila_ then when Yuri laughed so loudly that Otabek was forced to flick his eyes up to the boy opposite him. His yellow hair was wound into two round little space buns on the top of his head and his huge white vest top practically looked like a nightie on him, completely obscuring his tiny black shorts. Though it was creased and crumpled as it hung loose on his delicate frame, Otabek could just about see the face of the grumpy cat carrying a bazooka that was emblazoned across it.

“Problem?” Otabek asked. Yuri was clearly trying to get his attention. The boy just shook his head and turned back to his phone though, sniggering into his vest-dress. Otabek looked back at his own screen in turn.

 _Hi Mila,_ AGRH! Should he really end it with her through a text? Yuuri Katsuki’s words swam round in his head like judgemental Japanese fish: _You have to tell her in person._ But how could he tell her in person that he no longer wanted to date her? He hadn’t been able to refuse the date in the first place in person! Yuuri’s conscience-wracking fish kept swimming though, and so Otabek deleted his 6 meticulously planned out letters (8 characters if you include the space and the comma). He leaned backwards on the arm of the sofa and stared up at the ceiling with his fingers pursed on his forehead. _What the fuck was he going to do?_ Something large and heavy flopping into his chest didn’t give him much time to think on it as he was thrown forwards once again.

“LOOK!” It was Yuri, who’d grown tired of waiting for Otabek’s attention and was now demanding it by lunging in between his friend’s legs and pushing his phone into the Kazakhstani’s face. Otabek had to move the screen several inches away from his eyes to see what he was being made to look at.

It was a cat. Of course it was. The poor beast had been forced into a shirt and tie combo and what looked like a military uniform. Yuri was sniggering uncontrollably at it while he sprawled over Otabek’s chest.

“It’s a cat,” was how Otabek replied, thoroughly unimpressed. His lack of enthusiasm only spurred Yuri’s on though, who didn’t form another articulate word through his hysteria until: “I’M GOING TO DO IT TO SOFIA!” And with that he jumped off of the sofa and scrambled away to find his unsuspecting victim.

“You have clothes for your cat?” Otabek called after him. Yuri shouted in the affirmative from somewhere upstairs as he whistled and shouted for Sofia in the most maniacal way anyone has ever called for a cat ever. Otabek forgot all about texting Mila. Instead he looked to the corner of the living room where a curtain was trembling and he heard the words _help me_ through hisses again. Sofia stayed very close to Otabek’s feet as he walked to the front door to let her out.

“HELLO OTABEK!” As though they’d been there waiting, Victor and the other Yuuri were stood on the doorstep when Otabek opened the door, one with his arms stretched as wide as his smile was, one huffing behind the other laden down like a packhorse with shopping bags. Guess which was which. Sofia, seemingly as nervous around Victor as she was around Yuri, shot off like a bullet from a gun when she caught a glint of his silver hair, leaving furls of dust billowing upwards behind her sprinting paws.

Victor didn’t wait to be invited in. “HELLO YURIO!” He shouted when he entered the kitchen. Yuri stuck his head over the bannister on the stairs with a grimace and an arm full of miniature outfits. (“Huh?”) “WE BROUGHT SNACKS!”

Yuri and Victor screamed at each other in a Russian only Yuuri couldn’t understand and Otabek gravitated towards Yuuri Katsuki just so his ears didn’t bleed.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

“WE BROUGHT SNACKS!” (Victor’s screaming was happy and melodic, but still as shrill as Yuri’s.)

“THAT ANSWERS NOTHING. I DIDN’T INVITE YOU HERE!”

“THEY’RE STRAWBERRIES AND CHOCOLATE!”

“PISS OFF OLD MAN!”

“You brought strawberries and chocolate?” Otabek asked Yuuri in a normal volume, casting his eyes to the shopping bags in which far too many cartons of strawberries for four people were stacked. “Why?”

“Victor wanted to make fondue.” Otabek furrowed his brow in confusion. “There’s a three foot stone bust of Achilles by his bed and Yurio currently has an armful of dungarees and dresses that will only fit his cat,” Yuuri sighed. “When you figure the Russian skaters out, write a handbook and share the knowledge, okay?”

Otabek shrugged: Yuuri had a point. Soon Victor was back in the kitchen melting chocolate over boiling water so it didn’t burn, and Yuri had joined them and was lining up the feline attire on the kitchen counter, dresswear to casual.

“I couldn’t find Sofia,” he pouted, debating whether the evening gown he was holding was the nicest outfit she owned.

“I think your cat bolted when Victor came in,” Otabek suggested, poking an embroided train conductor’s hat.

Yuri swore loudly. “She hates Victor.” Victor just smiled.

“Chocolate and strawberries are up!” he trilled, placing both on the counter over the catwear.

It didn’t take long before Victor was smothering the fruit in the chocolate and trying to feed it seductively to his student, and it didn’t take long before Yuuri overcame his mandatory awkwardness and bowed to his coach’s whim. Yuri and Otabek just stared at Victor’s homemade fondue dubiously, wondering why they had to be witness to this love-fest.

Yuri eventually succumbed though, snatching one of the strawberries straight from the other Russian’s hands and dipping it into the bowl. He ate it in the least seductive way possible and Otabek couldn’t help but smile. He managed to get chocolate on the bridge above his lips and he wrinkled his nose like a child as he tried to get it off. Otabek snorted his laughter and Yuri wasn’t impressed.

“Shut up,” he barked, throwing a strawberry in Otabek’s direction which only narrowly missed him. Otabek feigned apologising and reached into the bag of fruit for his own. As he dipped his strawberry into the mixture though, Yuri dipped his hand in at the same time and smeared chocolate all over the back of Otabek’s wrist. Otabek licked it off, slowly, ensuring he didn’t break eye-contact with Yuri as he did so. He was pleased that Yuri suddenly looked embarrassed at the flicking of Otabek’s tongue coupled with his stare and turned away.

“Dickhead,” he mumbled under his breath, as he shoved another two strawberries in his mouth, chipmunk-style.

Now it was Otabek’s turn. The next time Yuri reached into the fondue, Otabek leaned forward and smeared chocolate down the boy’s cheek with his fingers. Shocked and scandalised, Yuri froze for a second, before he regained himself, swore very loudly and scooped up a glob of chocolate aiming it straight at Otabek’s face. Otabek stood up to avoid it but it splattered over his shirt and neck. Yuri fell off his stool laughing and now they were now definitely in a food fight.

Yuri scrambled to his feet quickly and reached for more chocolate, but Otabek got to the bowl first and smeared its contents over both of Yuri’s cheeks and in his hair. Yuri retaliated, wiping his chocolatey hands down Otabek’s own cheeks and the tops of his arms, and when Otabek went for some more ammunition, Yuri took off, sniggering wildly as he ran. Otabek chased him round the living room, taking care not to touch anything but his victim, while Yuri bobbed round one edge of the sofa, and then the other, before scurrying back into the kitchen, now howling with laughter.

He grabbed a carton of strawberries away from Yuri and Victor (who were staring so longingly into each other’s eyes that they didn’t even realise the food fight was taking place,) before hurtling his new projectiles at Otabek. Otabek quickly caught him up though and soon Yuri’s face, shoulders and hair were all caked and brown.

Yuri immediately scooped more chocolate for himself, but Otabek caught him by the wrists before he could use it and held them high in the air. Otabek was laughing too now, laughing harder than anyone in the room had ever seen, as Yuri tried to wipe the chocolate anywhere he could reach while his friend still had his wrists held tight. The back of Otabek’s hands took the brunt of it, until Yuri managed to wriggle in such a way that he could swipe at the gap between Otabek’s tank top and jeans.

Otabek flinched at the cold chocolate on his middrift, letting his grip slip on Yuri just enough that the boy managed to wrangle his way free, pick up more chocolate and smear it down his friend’s face and neck.

There was barely any melted chocolate left by now, save for what was already over Otabek and Yuri, so Otabek took a leaf out of his friend’s war tactics and started lobbing the strawberries again. Yuri tried to escape, slipped on a fruit squashed against the kitchen tiles and went tumbling backwards in a mess of blond hair and chocolate-coated skin. Otabek took the opportunity to pounce on him and pinned him to the floor under the weight of his body. Yuri’s laugh was infectious – he was laughing so hard – and Otabek fought to grab his wrists again and pin them to the ground on either side of his face.

Yuri kicked and thrashed his legs and struggled to free his arms but he couldn’t escape. Otabek had won. He couldn’t reach any more ammunition without letting go of his victim though so he had no more to do: he ran his tongue down the side of Yuri’s face, licking the chocolate off that was caked against the porcelain skin. Yuri was still laughing wildly like a child as Otabek’s tongue licked and licked at the chocolate on his cheek and then his neck.

“Stop it!” Yuri croaked through his hysteria. “I’m being molested! Help me! Victor! Pork cutlet bowl!” He was still laughing, and Otabek was laughing, and neither one of them heard Otabek’s phone buzz from where it had slipped out of Otabek’s pocket and landed in all the hysteria.

Eventually, Yuri got tired of struggling, and just lay beneath the weight of his houseguest, laughing and panting and laughing some more while Otabek continued licking chocolate off his forehead, panting just as hard. Somewhere in between all the laughing though, Yuri must have realised how sensual this moment could be construed, as when Otabek lifted his mouth away from Yuri’s cheek, the boy beneath him had become very still and very red. His playful giggles had stopped and Otabek too realised that he was on top of Yuri, pinning him to the ground with his thighs, his lips just seconds away from his friend’s.

 _I could kiss him,_ Otabek thought, as his heavy breathing became heavier and Yuri’s chest started to heave underneath Otabek.

 _I’m going to do it,_ Otabek thought, the heat rising to his own cheeks as he willed himself forwards. In this new silence though, the buzzing of the phone was suddenly very audible and they both turned to its discarded position on the tiled floor.

A few seconds passed until: “You going to see who that is?” Yuri panted. Out of reflex, Otabek reached for the phone, allowing his friend to rise.

They both saw Mila’s name blinking from above a text message and the moment was over. Otabek stood up, quickly followed by Yuri, who immediately became vitriolic in his embarrassment as he saw both Victor and Yuuri smirking at them.

“You two probably need a shower,” Victor winked, a strawberry pursed between his lips.

Yuri mumbled something angrily and stormed away upstairs. Otabek made haste to follow him.

“Make sure it’s a cold one!” Victor called after them both.

 

* * *

 

In one of Lilia’s many silver and glass bathrooms, Yuri started peeling off his chocolate-stained clothes while Otabek reached for a flannel and scrubbed at the smears on his own skin. The chocolate had dried quickly in the heat of the twilight and was clinging to the dark hairs on his arms - they were red and raw by the time he’d finished scrubbing just one patch. He may have just been a little over-zealous in his chocolate removal however, as his attention was firmly on Yuri’s strip-tease. He was stood now in just his pink leopard-print underwear – a Yuri appropriate choice as ever – chocolate smeared all over his pale skin like bruises while he picked chunks out of his yellow hair.

“Goddamn it, Otabek,” he grumbled, turning to stare into a large wall-mirror. “If I have to cut this out of my hair, I’m fucking shaving yours off.”

Otabek barely made sense of the words. Seeing Yuri standing there wearing a frown and not much else – he couldn’t help himself. Completely forgetting about the Mila interruption earlier and just focussing on what almost happened, he calmly closed the short gap between them and rested his hands very lightly on the tops of the nearly-naked Russian’s arms. Otabek could only see Yuri’s expression in the mirror, but he felt him freeze beneath his touch.

Very softly, he bent his head and rested his lips on a dried stain of chocolate just under Yuri’s shoulder. With his tongue, he followed it up to another chocolate smear on the nape of his neck.

It was so different than when he was licking the chocolate off him before. There was no giggling, this wasn’t playful, and he was pleased to see Yuri’s eyes flutter and close in the mirror as he felt his pulse throb beneath where his hands still rested. The chocolate was caked on now though – one lick wasn’t enough – so he traced the same path again with his tongue, this time moving Yuri’s blond hair gently over his other shoulder when he reached his neck.

Otabek’s lips weren’t too far away from Yuri’s, he thought as he worked on the chocolate at the top of his shoulder. He could so easily spin him around, push him against the mirror and lick those lips wildly until they bruised. He wanted to. The look on Yuri’s face earlier when he had had him pinned to the kitchen tiles gave him hope that his friend wanted the same thing.

_He was going to do it._

The third time his tongue traced that same path then, his hands gripped tighter, his mouth ventured further than it had done the previous two times. Up to the side of Yuri’s neck, under his jawline – there was no chocolate there as his tongue flicked the bone. Something suddenly made Yuri snap out of his trance though – the thought of Mila? Her text message? Did he simply just not want what was going to happen to happen? – and he gave Otabek a swift elbow to the chest.

“Quit dicking around,” he said, his voice breathy, almost ragged. Otabek, oddly surprised, like Yuri was ever just going to let him kiss him, released the boy and took a few steps backwards. Yuri didn’t turn to look at him – just as well – but stripped away what was left of his clothing and sauntered off to the shower.

Otabek quickly left the bathroom and slouched against the nearest wall with his head in his hands. He was hard – of course he was. He’d just licked melted chocolate off the most beautiful man in the world in the most sensual way possible – Yuri must now know how he felt for him. Was he _really_ just not interested?

His dick ached as he sat against the jacquard wallpaper – frustrated, angry – and, fuck, he felt like a bloody fool! In a rare show of emotion then, he balled his fist up tight and punched it against the wall in front of him. His knuckles left dents in the fleur de lis, but until he’d sorted out his chocolate and his boner, he didn’t give a shit.

He tugged his phone out of his pocket and read the message from Mila.

 _Want to go out again tomorrow night ;) ?_ It read.

He smashed his reply against the phone: _sure._ Even shorter than his earlier message.

Well, he was barking up the bloody wrong tree with Yuri.


End file.
